Mark has been studying the sacramental drug-culture relationship for seven years, having presented his research in Tallinn, Harvard, Breaking Convention and Prague. His interests span theology, philosophy, critical theory, medical anthropology and literature and he looks at the relationship between measurable exteriorities, immeasurable interiorities, ritual and value generation, comparativism and natural theology. He is especially interested in the ways in which ritual, rave, and medical cultures potentiate the psychedelic state, and in the philosophy of cognitive liberty. Having studied at Oxford and Durham, Mark is also a published poet and is pursuing a PhD at Exeter University, in comparative drug culture with Prof Christine Hauskeller and Dr Luis Eduardo Luna.
Mark says of the Exeter Psychedelics Colloquium:
“In the Native American Church, one can say also of people, places, communities, moments, and places that they are ‘good medicine’: not just a plant or a drug. The Exeter Psychedelic Research Colloquium boasts a consistently multi-disciplinary spectrum of approaches to psychedelic research. It is due to this fertile cross-pollination that I attend regularly – scholars from around the world present and attend, virtually and in person, from as diverse approaches as embodiment philosophy, cultural studies, and cognitive neuroscience. This community is very much, ‘good medicine.'”
